What goes with a coffee-rubbed cheese? A beer with roasted malts that have coffee notes. Brooklyn Brewery's Intensified Coffee Stout, for one, uses actual coffee beans in the brewing. Photography courtesy of Beehive Cheese.

WHAT IT IS: Artisan flavored Cheddars from Utah.

WHY IT’S DIFFERENT: Creative approaches to classic cheeses.

WHY WE LOVE IT: The Utah “terroir,” the buttery flavor of the cheeses and the “buzz” we get from having such fun with these cow’s milk cheeses.

Beehive Cheese: Spread The Buzz

CAPSULE REPORT: Beehive Cheese is another wonderful artisan food story. Brothers-in-law working in software and real estate traded fast-paced corporate jobs for green acres, and grinding commutes with briefcases and laptops for quiet mornings turning 500 gallons of farm-fresh milk into cheese. Instead of “make it happen—now!,” they now spend months patiently waiting for their cheeses to ripen.

Learning elementary Cheddar-making at the local agricultural college, they opened a shop that also stocked other artisans’ cheeses, plus coffee beans from one of the owners’ brothers, a roaster in Colorado. One cold January morning, inspiration struck to pat some ground Turkish coffee onto some wheels of their Cheddar. The local hit—dubbed Barely Buzzed by the winner of a naming contest—became the first prize winner at the American Cheese Society Competition in 2007 and 2008 (the 2009 competition takes place this week).

We knew none of this when we stumbled upon Barely Buzzed a few months back at the Winter Fancy Food Show. We only know an eye-opening Cheddar when we taste one. Beehive Cheese Co. makes more than one charming cheese, and the Cheddar champs have proved that Amano Chocolate (founded by another Utah software industry emigré) isn’t the only artisan food from the Beehive State that can compete in the bee-g time. Read all the buzz about Beehive in the full review.

THE NIBBLE does not sell the foods we review
or receive fees from manufacturers for recommending them. Our recommendations are based purely on our opinion, after tasting thousands of products each year, that they represent the best in their respective categories.

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Cheese Glossary.Types of cheese, terms and definitions that every cheese lover should know. Start adding to your knowledge of cheese.

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Introduction To Beehive Cheese Co.

Uintah (you-IN-tuh), Utah sits at the mouth of Weber Canyon, five miles south of Ogden and 25 miles north of Salt Lake City. It is named after the native Ute tribe, which also gave its name to the state of Utah. (Gosh, we never thought of that!)

Long before the first Anglo-Europeans came to Utah, the area was a favorite camping and hunting ground for the Utes, as they traveled through Weber Canyon. Now, everyone in modern Utah on the hunt for some really good cheese can make the trek. (Or they can order online.)

When Patrick Ford and Tim Welsh quit their “day jobs” to make cheese, their goal was to bring back the local creamery in Utah, where there are only a few artisan cheese makers. Now, locals can drive up to buy some cheese, made with the milk from the herd of Jersey cows down the road.

Promontory, an Irish-style Cheddar, celebrates Promontory Summit, the location north of the Great Salt Lake where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads were joined on May 10, 1869 to create America’s first Transcontinental Railroad.

But with the Internet, the world is a global cheese shop, and Beehive Cheese Co. is one worth clicking over to. Taste along with us on the next page and see why these buzzworthy cheeses have been winning top awards at competitions.